


Plucky

by Sabeloid



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Basically everyone on Titan, Character Study, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, but to be fair hes hurt so.., everyones just trying their best ok, peters a good boy but also kinda dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 19:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabeloid/pseuds/Sabeloid
Summary: Peter really shouldn't have taken the stone...--------------------------In which Peter gets hurt, Tony is a concerned dad, Quill kinda sorta tries to make up for his mistakes, Stephen tries to help, and Mantis is along for the ride. Also, Thanos is a butt-head.





	Plucky

**Author's Note:**

> So this is something I wrote right after seeing Infinity War and just never finished. It's also a bit of a character study in a what if? scenario. It takes place during the Titan scene where Quill messes up and then diverts from there. I think I might've gotten the idea from somewhere or maybe read something similar after I wrote it but idk it was a while ago... Anyways! the ending is open ended so you get to decide what happens next cause I was too lazy to figure the rest out. Enjoy!

“Don’t- Don’t! Don’t engage! We’ve almost got this off!”

  
Peter can hear the desperation in Tony’s voice and pulls with all his superhuman might, feet digging into the dirt below him. A quick glance is all he can spare before re-focusing his attention on getting the gauntlet loose, watching as Quill, rage on his face and fury shaking his body, takes a step closer to Thanos. “Quill, just wait a second! You can beat the shit out of him when we’ve got this thing off of him-C’mon Pete, pull!”

  
_I’m trying!_ Is what he wants to shout but it’s no use. Quill suddenly takes a swing, Tony tries to intervene, Mantis loses her grip, and Thanos breaks from their grasps, just before Peter can fully wrench the gauntlet free. The others are swatted away like flies as he falls away from Thanos, and then those piercing eyes land on Peter’s form just as he’s lifting himself off the ground to get back into the fight. There’s nothing he can do when the large, meaty hand wraps itself around his neck and lifts him into the air, his suit cracking, shattering, crumbling under the force, leaving him defenseless.

  
_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_ repeats in Peter’s head like a mantra. He knows this is it. This is where he dies; in the hands of a madman, in the presence of strangers. He briefly thinks of how Mr. Stark will get mad that Peter’s brand new suit is practically destroyed and finds it funny that this thought might be his last, but the laugh catches in his throat, along with the air from his lungs. The sound of a charging blaster jerks Peter from his musings and he remembers that there’s _painagony_ preventing him from breathing. He grasps at the fingers around his neck, trying to pry open the flesh and instead finds metal.

  
“Let him go.” Tony’s voice takes a dangerous edge but Peter doesn’t notice. He’s concerned with the fact that this alien has metal for a hand ( _not that Peter finds anything wrong with that! The guy with the metal arm in Germany was cool, even though he was trying to smash Peter’s face in. The way the man’s arm moved like an improved version of a flesh and bones arm fascinated him. Peter really would have liked to take a look at it and figure out how it works_ ).

  
“A life for a stone.” Peter’s gaze snaps to the smirk on Thanos’ face as if just remembering where he was, and then focuses back on the glove that’s _hurtingcrushingkilling_ him. He finds it impolite that Thanos doesn’t seem to take him for a threat anymore, despite the fact that Peter could quite literally just remove an infinity stone from the gauntlet with a tug to turn the advantage in the fight to his team ( _somewhere deep inside, his mind is screaming at everyone to just keep attacking Thanos because his life isn’t worth the entire universe_ ). So, after a second of ( _not so_ ) careful consideration, he does.

* * *

 

Tony was not having a good day. Oh, it started off well, but after the wizard stole him away from his fiance, everything started to go downhill. And now, he, along with said wizard, the blue lady, and the group that ambushed them earlier, are currently staring Thanos down, unsure of what to do next. For Tony, there isn’t really an option for action. Thanos has Peter and Peter has no air.

  
So while Tony just really wants to give that villainous purple dildo a good beating, he also really wants to not kill Peter ( _and that’s_ his kid _god dammit. His kid that wasn’t even supposed to_ be here.)

  
Though, at this rate, Peter and the rest of the universe might die anyways, and damn if that isn’t frightening.

  
So he lowers the charged glove and glowers at the confident smirk that’s inhabiting the lower half of Thanos’ ugly face, prepared to demand that Strange hand over the fifth stone to the bastard because to hell with it all, Peter is not going to die today, not on his watch. He turns every so slightly, meeting eyes with Strange and the two somehow share an understanding despite the wizard’s earlier words back on the alien ship ( _though that might be wishful thinking on Tony’s part_ ). It’s when he turns back to answer Thanos’ demand that Peter unexpectedly plucks a stone out of the gauntlet ( _and who knew that the word ‘pluck’ would describe the action so well? The stone practically comes from the glove with a light pop that would have been comedic if not for what immediately comes after_ ).

  
And Tony’s day goes from not good to horrifying in a matter of seconds.

* * *

 

In hindsight, Quill probably should have warned the “Avengers” that holding the stones in their bare hands might kill them. Or, to be more accurate, would definitely, very much so, shred them to tiny ash-like pieces as soon as they touched one. When the Spider-boy reached for the stones and began to be torn apart by the shear power of what he held, Quill realized his mistake. And didn’t that just suck. Like, the entire situation just really, really sucked. He was starting to like the arachnid and now the little squirt was gonna die. Just like how Gamora died. In a probably gruesome, painful _violent lonely_ -!

  
He couldn’t blame anyone other than himself though. Except maybe Thanos. Definitely Thanos. Because they were in this entire situation in order to stop Thanos. Which actually made it fully Thanos’ fault. So Quill wasn’t really to blame. Even if he did punch the douche in the face and kind of destroyed their one good chance of getting the gauntlet off of said douche’s hand.

  
It was all very confusing as to who’s fault it was. But it was probably not his.

  
All that mattered now was getting another opportunity to finish the asshat off once and for all, which the stupid, kinda brave, spiderling had just provided. So when the two get blasted away from each other by the stone’s disrupted power or some other mysterious cause, ( _Quill isn’t a engineer or rocket scientist or whatever the hell someone is called who knows about this shit, okay? He just fights and steals stuff. It’s what he does_.) Star-Lord rushes Thanos before the titan can get up and aims his gun where he knows it’ll hurt.

* * *

 

The battlefield is a melting-pot of chaos and Mantis isn’t quite sure of what to do. She’s also not sure if she’s in shock over what just happened or if Thanos hit her harder in the head than she thought. Next to her, Nebula clicks her tongue in disgust over the situation before moving to attack the titan from behind. The empath watches detachedly as the fighting begins anew and it isn’t until Drax almost runs her over in his haste to join the fight that Mantis decides she’s of more use to the injured child than to the others.

  
Mantis navigates through the battlefield, reaching the young spider at the same time that the man in metal does. Even without touching the boy, she can feel the pain radiating from him in large, swelling waves. His skin is patchy where parts of it are peeling away, blood beginning to pool and veins slowly starting to glow, from the power of the stone.

  
“Pete-Peter! No! No no no! Common Pete, look at me-” The man in metal (Stank? Stork?) pleads to the boy, reaching out to turn his face towards him, to get the boy - Peter - to focus his glassy eyes on him and Mantis wants to cry. She doesn’t know if these emotions are hers or not.

  
A hand catches Stork’s wrist and a “Don’t!” accompanies it as a second person joins them. Mantis looks up to see the man in the red cape staring down at the boy in horror and fascination. Both, probably, because the boy is still alive and yet in so much pain. Stork glares at the second man and Mantis is afraid that the he might lash out. The metal bird man ( _storks are birds, right? Quill has mentioned something about them once or twice_ ) doesn’t get the chance to before the cape man interrupts again.

  
“The stone is killing him. We need to get him to let go or he will die.”

  
Stork reaches for Peter again, this time aiming to remove the stone from his shaking fist, but the cape man angrily slaps his hand away.

  
“Are you a moron or just deaf?” He exclaims, “If you touch that, it’ll kill you!” Frustration.

  
“What the hell am I supposed to do Strange? Just leave him like this?” Anger.

  
“We need to get him to release the stone without touching him, and then I can send it back to the sanctum to get it away from Thanos.” Urgency.

  
“Whatever you do you need to do quickly. He does not have much longer.” Mantis jumps into the conversation even though she knows it’s rude to interrupt ( _Drax told her so_ ), and turns her face down to bring their attention back to Peter. His skin is almost completely charred now and the blood is running in rivulets down his face and arms. The previous pain radiating from him isn’t as fierce as it was before, even though he still holds the stone.

  
Mantis can feel him fading and she can knows that it won’t be long before he’s gone.

* * *

 

Stephen stares at the stone in the shaking hand. The power stone, amethyst in color, is emitting a glow that seemingly follows the beat of the child’s heart ( _He notes with alarm that he can see Peter’s pulse hammering in his neck arteries, and knows this is not a good sign_ ).

  
“Strange, do something!”

  
“I’m thinking.”

  
Stark grunts in frustration and drags a shaking hand through his hair, “Well, think faster!”

  
Stephen looks up sharply to retort with some unfriendly words but stops when he sees the terror on Stark’s face, and sighs instead.

  
“I could try using my magic, but it may hurt him further, or cause the stone to react violently, or-” he stops to control himself, to breathe through his panic ( _because, really, he may be sorcerer supreme and a doctor, but he’s also never dealt with this before_ ). “There could be endless possibilities of how the stone could react to magic while being activated.”

  
Stark shakes his head and the alien next to them bites her lip.

  
“He’s fading.” She says. “It is now or not again.”

  
The doctor grits his teeth to stop from correcting her English and after a brief moment of hesitation, decides that anything is better than just waiting for the boy to die. He hopes that his theory is wrong as he brings his hand close to the boy’s.

* * *

  
Stephen levitates the stone between two fingers charged with magic, trying to pry it gently from a tight fist. Amethyst light begins to pulse around the four of them, a low thrumming sounding in the air...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comment what you believe to happen next :)


End file.
